Ben Carson officially drops out of the presidential race

Ben Carson officially dropped out of the presidential race Friday.

“Now that I’m leaving the campaign trail,” he said in the middle of a speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference. The audience shouted, “no! no!” and gave him a standing ovation.

Carson said this week that he saw no “path forward” for his presidential campaign and did not participate in Thursday night’s Republican debate, but he had not formally dropped out. He said Friday that he realized he didn’t have the support or votes to win the contest.

“I did the math,” Carson said of his decision to drop out. “I looked at the delegate counts, I looked at the states, I looked at the requirements and I realized it simply wasn’t going to happen and if that’s the case, I didn’t want to interfere with the process.”

- FWBP Digital Partners -

Carson joked that there are a “lot of people who love me, they just won’t vote for me,” he said to laughs. “But it’s OK, it’s not a problem.”

Carson said he will be involved in efforts to get evangelical Christians to vote.

“I will still continue to be heavily involved in trying to save our nation. We have to save it,” he said.

Carson said he has heard “troubling things,” like people won’t vote at all if they don’t vote for him.

- Advertisement -

“If you won’t vote, then you’re voting for the other side. We can’t afford that,” Carson said.